The legislature’s 1990 decision to legalize casino gambling along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast has led to increased revenues and economic gains for the state. Gambling towns in Mississippi have attracted increased tourism: they include the Gulf Coast resort towns of Bay St. Louis, Gulfport and Biloxi, and the Mississippi River towns of Tunica (the third largest gaming area in the United States), Greenville, Vicksburg and Natchez.
Before Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, Mississippi was the second-largest gambling state in the Union, after Nevada and ahead of New Jersey. An estimated $500,000 per day in tax revenue was lost following Hurricane Katrina’s severe damage to several coastal casinos in Biloxi in August 2005.
In 2012, Mississippi had the sixth largest gambling revenue of any state, with $2.25 billion.
Mississippi has some major automotive factories, such as the Toyota Mississippi Plant in Blue Springs and a Nissan Automotive plant in Canton.
Transportation:
Mississippi has two international airports, one in Jackson (Jackson-Evers International Airport) and one in Gulfport (Gulfport-Biloxi International Airport).
Mississippi is served by nine interstate highways: I-10, I-20, I-22, I-55, I-59, I-69..
Amtrak provides scheduled passenger service along two routes, the Crescent and City of New Orleans. Prior to severe damage from Hurricane Katrina, the Sunset Limited traversed the far south of the state; the route originated in Los Angeles, California and it terminated in Florida.
Flag of Mississippi:
The flag of the state of Mississippi was first adopted in April 1894, replacing the unofficial flag that had been adopted in 1861 when Mississippi was a Confederate state. The flag was repealed in 1906 but remained in de facto use. When a referendum failed for a new design in April 2001, the state legislature voted to readopt the historic design that same month. Since Georgia adopted a new state flag in 2003, the Mississippi flag is the only U.S. state flag to include the Confederate battle flag’s saltire.
Before 1861, Mississippi, like most other states, did not have an official state flag. When Mississippi declared its secession from the Union on January 9, 1861, near the start of the American Civil War, spectators in the balcony handed a Bonnie Blue Flag down to the Secession Convention delegates on the floor, and one was raised over the capitol building in Jackson as a sign of independence.
The first official flag of Mississippi was known as the Magnolia Flag. It was the official flag of the state from 1861 until 1865. It remained in use as an unofficial flag until 1894, when the current state flag was first adopted.
The state of Mississippi did not have an official state flag from 1906-2001. Nonetheless, the 1894 flag continued to be used as the de facto state flag until it was officially readopted by the state legislature on April 17, 2001. There had been widespread protests by some African-American and other civil rights groups about adopting the flag with the Confederate emblem.